Love Thy Messages | PowerHouseCreatives Contest

During my recent trip back home to Kuala Lumpur, my hubby and I went on to enjoy some quite time alone. With the boys at school, we decided to drop by to our favorite noodle shop, Lian Heng Pan Mee at USJ 1, Subang Jaya. We’ve been following this shop since they moved from SS19 Subang Jaya where they only occupied one small section of a coffeeshop to now having their own coffeeshop in USJ1.

Enjoying our bowl of noodles quietly with a casual small conversations among each other, I would consider it to be a nice and peaceful morning. Until, the table next to us started their conversations. Five elderly ladies were seated next to us also enjoying their bowl of noodles. However, they seemed more interested in sharing the highlights around their family, kids and grandchildren. Laughter over laughter came up as they commented on each others lives.

“This was how information was shared before the time of social media,” said my hubby.

Thinking back to that situation and looking at the options of the Photo Prompt of the contest, I can’t help but see the connections of this photo to our lives now.

We used to write more on, using all types of paper materials to share our thoughts. Going to the bookstore was always the highlight of the week because we could buy new ones, be it gloss coated, matt, recycled, silk coated, watermark or uncoated. Each of these papers had different color as well in addition to the thickness. And there were always matching envelopes to it.

Those were the days that we look forward to the postman dropping by our homes and delivering our letters from friends or siblings or relatives from far away. Seeing those handwritten letters and reading them aloud during family meals and sharing the laughter and joy that each letter brought to us was fascinating. Some of us also began to have pen palls from near & far and that brought the beginning of social media; yet still in a conventional method.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

As years passed and technology improved and improvised, our writing becomes shorter and shorter. Letters to friends or siblings slowly but surely was forgotten and now replaced with just short internet messages such as OMG, LOL, BRB, LMK, G2G. Properly written letters are now used only for commercial purposes and only in these letters, correct vocabulary are used.

TUC TUC TUC TUC

That’s the sound of the keyboard typing the words from our mind. Seeing handwritten messages to one another is not only rare but scarce. If we’re lucky, we will get short messages written on a post stick and stuck on the fridge or entrance door.

Is that what’s left of our past, and moving forward it’s only the keyboard that will be our tool for communication ?

Or

Just short Post-It messages with 4 or 5 words ?

Have we move so fast ahead that our conversations are all shorten by more than half ?